


Cliches on a Bridge

by ArtificialZeeZee



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bitney - Freeform, Depression, F/F, Genderswap, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 11:58:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15388284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtificialZeeZee/pseuds/ArtificialZeeZee
Summary: Sometimes a story doesn’t need to be told. Sometimes it’s painful and dramatic and hard to understand, but it’s just as important as any other story. Sometimes a story is sad, and judged, but its heaviness is relatable and can be strong. With this story, Bianca is tired, and Courtney is crying. Somehow, their lives collide at the worst time, becoming the best time. Sometimes, a story is real, even when it’s not. It’s a happy ending, if you look hard enough.





	Cliches on a Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> OBVIOUSLY this is fiction. It was a vent fic I wrote. Let me know your thoughts!

The beauty of the rippling water was a confliction of conviction now that Bianca was staring down at it, her eyes straining as the only light provided was the moon’s and a street lamp on the other side of the road. She leaned over the bridge and down into the sea, letting the waves simmer the raging storm that was her mind. It was breathtaking, the nature of power at it’s calm, but she knew it could swallow her whole. She’d be sucked into the water, pulling her around and rendering her fighting limbs useless, and then she’d be a prisoner of the clear surrounding, the blurry reality of a deluded fantasy, till her last breath burst her lungs and she was silent and wet. Dead, never to walk the streets again unless reincarnation was true or it was a dream.

It wasn’t a dream however, she was seriously staring down at the water with wishful thoughts of ending her life. She almost craved the immense pain of her throat closing as she struggled to breath, and her organs swelling as the water filled the empty spaces of her body. She wants to know how the end may feel under the worst possibility - and in this case, that’s disappearing and being a victim to the earth, the way she’s felt her whole life. 

The night is sparking with the bitter wind, burning her bare cheeks, but she likes the pain. The harsh smack that hits her skin tauntingly, but too hard. The sky is a hard black, with only a few minuscule stars trying to light up and help her home: failing. The world has gone to bed, and the silence hums through the dusty air, accompanying the whistle of the wind that still burns Bianca and brings tears to her eyes.

She’s not crying; remember that fact; she’s exhausted and  _very_  cold.

Bianca holds tight on the railing of the bridge, her knuckles turning milky white against the usual olive tone. She thinks about all the pain she’s been feeling, and how cold it felt, and how numbing it had become. All the years that had drawn lines on her face, scarred her for life. The heavy bags that weighed her eyes down, darkening the vibrant colour blues she’d been blessed with, now dull with the shadows of her enemies and demons over powering her. Her heart felt like the bridge railing - solid, freezing, and stuck against its will. Her heart felt like it might crumble soon, and so she had planned to end its suffering before anyone else could hurt it anymore.

Bianca held her breath for as long as possible before letting it out, panting like a dog as her lungs delighted in the fresh air returning. She was trying to understand what may happen, if she did the thing she planned to do. It would be wetter, and 100 times more painful, but it would feel constricting just like holding her breath. Then she’d be desperate, and she’d panic and the water would be so over bearing she’d feel like she may explode. Then, rather than exploding, she’d drift off into a never ending sleep.

Bianca would be dead and finally at peace. She wouldn’t be happy; that’s the point; if she wanted happy she’d keep fighting; because what she  _wants_  is an end. 

The first time she’d thought about ending her life wasn’t anything special, but it had a particular emotional effect on Bianca all the same. She was 14 years old, listening to sad music in her room in the bleak dark with only the glow of the moonlight, similar to tonight. She lay alone, depressed and tired, and thought “ _wouldn’t it be better if I just fucking died?_ ” And just as fast as she’d thought it, she’d said it, to no one but herself. Then, she regrets it and realises there’s no taking back that realisation now that it’s flying through the air, like the words have become physical birds, tweeting and taunting her. She’d given life to the dark wants that were trapped inside her, and now they possessed too much power over her. The echoes that followed her for years: “ _Wouldn’t it be better if I just fucking died, Wouldn’t it be better if I just died,_ _Wouldn’t it be better if I died, If I died.”_ Years toiled on, unassuming, daunting and depressing, and while she managed another 10 years, she’d come to a final point where the echoes were too loud and she had to put a stop to the pain.

Bianca stares down at the water, taking what must be her final, delicious breath, and clambers over the railing. It’s a struggle, she worries she’ll slip and fall but it doesn’t matter anyhow, just means she’ll have died being a clumsy asshole instead of at least with grace. However, she balances herself and stands on the other side of the fence holding the metal, staring down at her icy grave. 

This will be her grave, and the thought almost scares her out of jumping.  _Almost_. 

“Okay,” she mutters to herself, her breath visible in the cold dust of a bitter evening. “Okay, I can do this.” Her eyes stay glued to the thrashing waves that are soon to eat her alive, and her heart actually beats rapidly out of  _fear_. She’s doing this for her heart though, to stop the claustrophobic hold of life squeezing life out of her slowly. This is an end that will wipe her from existing, once and for all. “Okay.” She says one last time, straightening up…

“ _Stop_!” Hands suddenly grab her wrists and holds her for dear life, like clamps. Bianca almost slips again, and a quick flash of relief zips through her body before the disappointment. She can’t look behind her, she just keeps looking down, now more scared than anticipated. 

“What the  _fuck_  are you doing, can’t you see I’m trying to kill myself?” Bianca grits her teeth, tears pricking at her eyes again. She’s not crying; remember that. “This isn’t your story to write over. Fuck off!”

“No, you can’t kill yourself. Please, I can’t watch that!”

“Than walk away, who asked you here?!”

“No! You can’t kill yourself, I won’t let you!” The voice is a woman’s. High and fragile, like she’d been thrown around the same trials and tribulations Bianca had, but her accent was thick: Australian, Bianca guessed. She felt the hands tighten, pinching her wrists slightly- 

“Ow!  _Fuck,_  would you stop? Your nails are like a cats or some shit!”

“If you climb back over, I’ll let go.”

“What are you, my ex? I don’t have to do anything you say. Now, as I said before, fuck off!”

The water was loud. It was crashing, almost laughing as Bianca only hovered above, not yet accepting the fate she thought was sealed. It mocked her, and she felt the horrible pain that she wanted to stop.

“Please. Please come back. Let me talk to you-”

“Look,” Bianca finally turned to look behind her, hands tightening on the rail. She saw the side of a face, and blonde hair freely floating in the strong breeze. There were black lines running down the cheek she could see, but the view was distorted and obscure, so she said nothing about it, rather just glared while gritting her teeth in fury.  “This aint no fucking rom-com shit. This aint a Titanic reboot or a cliche for you to milk, so back the fuck up! This is  _my_  business, and if I want to kill myself, than pay me no mind and be on your pretty little way, okay?!”

Then, as she was about to forcefully pull herself free and throw herself angrily into the depths of the water below her, the other girl threatened, “If you jump in, I’ll jump after you!”

Bianca stiffened, grunting. “Oh yeah?”

The hands tightened again. “Yeah.” And that time, the delicate voice was a forceful wall that made Bianca’s stomach churn. She could take her own life, that  _was_  her business, but she couldn’t die knowing she could be the reason for a stranger dying. Even though the curiosity crossed her mind for a second, she reluctantly pulled herself back over the railing, with the hands of the stranger firmly on her limbs, making sure she came back overly safely. The tips of Bianca’s toes were no longer dangling over the edge, and the flat surface of the earth made her heart skip a beat.

Bianca kept her eyes to that ground, taking in the fact she was still alive, disappointed. The cold still burning her cheeks, and tears still pricking at her eyes; she wasn’t crying though, remember that. 

The girl took her hands back, holding her arms coyly against her chest. There was a silence as they stood across from each other, awkward and tense, and then Bianca looked up to yell at her. She was met with a porcelain, sharp face, stained with mascara and eyeliner running down her face. Her eyes were a mix of a sunset pink and green, and her smile was crooked and false, shivering as she tried to hold on to a strength she obviously didn’t possess. Bianca frowned, taking in the girl’s appearance and holding it valuable as she rewired her brain to process  _not_  suffocating. She wasn’t a big fan of things not going accordingly to plan…

“Hi.” Bianca said, her raspy voice just audible. Courtney’s lips tightened as she smiled higher; faker. 

“Hi. I’m Courtney.” She held out her hand timidly. She was shaking, out of both nerves and the cold. Bianca felt her chest heave for her. She took her hand into her own and shook gently.

“I’m Bianca.” They separated, Courtney punched the palm of her other hand and patted them both down on the side of her legs 5 times. They were unable to look anywhere other than each other. “So, Courtney…you want to tell me why you’ve been crying?”

Courtney furrowed her brow, sighing. “A long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

“How about you tell me why you were trying to kill yourself?”

“I asked you first.”

“I don’t care.”

Bianca rolled her eyes, putting a hand on her hip. “I don’t want to be alive. That’s it, it’s a pretty boring reason.” Courtney just kept staring at her, and Bianca could practically read her eyes asking ‘ _Why_?’. She groaned with annoyance. “I’m just not okay, and I was done feeling like that. Jeeze, what’s a girl gotta do to kill herself in peace round here?”

Courtney held her arms tighter, hugging her chest. “But…drowning. That’s so gruesome, isn’t it? I mean, you might die on impact hitting the water if your lucky, but if not…don’t you know what happens when you drown? The water fills your lungs till your throat closes up to try help you stop swallowing water but then you can’t even cough it back up, and the struggle to swim would tire you out and your fingernails would peel off, and your veins would be  _so_  gross, and, and, and-” She felt her own breath getting tight as if she was being pulled down by water, until she looked deep into Bianca’s eyes and saw an unbothered, annoyed expression. She took a deep breath, eyes dropping in dismissal. “You’d be in so much pain.”

“Isn’t dying painful no matter what?”

“Well, I mean, a gun to the head is pretty instant, you wouldn’t feel anything.”

“If you do it right.” Bianca crossed her arms. “If you owned a gun and weren’t living with younger siblings and your parents who didn’t need to find you like  _that_.”

“Oh.” Courtney mumbled, searching her head neurotically for something smart to say. “Sorry, I didn’t think-”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I have something to do and this conversation isn’t going any-”

“No, wait!” Bianca had to resist _literally growling_  in anger at the other girl, resting against the railing. Courtney’s face, pristine but torn as to what she was supposed to do next, and her cat green eyes shimmered in the magnificent glow of the moonlight high above. Courtney stuttered for a second, eyes chasing feverishly for something that wasn’t there. “I don’t want you to kill yourself. Life is worth living. There’s so much left to explore you don’t even know!”

Bianca let her head drop back on her shoulders, rolling her neck before snapping it back up to stare half-eyed at Courtney. “Listen. You’re real cute and I can appreciate the sentiment of trying to save me, I really can, but this is a long time coming. If you walk away, I’ll jump. If we part, and I go home, I’ll be back tomorrow. No matter what, I’ll end up back here. I’m sorry you have to now know that, but I don’t fuck around. What you see is what you get.”

Courtney sniffed, some tears still fresh in her eyes from whatever was going on in her life, which admittedly Bianca was curious about. She took a second before speaking. “Can we sit down for a while? Just, to talk.” Courtney shrugs. “If you’re going to die, at least talk to me for a bit. Please?”

It was pointless, and Bianca’s patience was wearing thin, but the sorrow masquerading on this strangers face made her body twist, and she didn’t have to heart to turn her down, even if it meant preventing her own death for a bit longer. She grunted, begrudgingly falling to her bum as she sat on the grimy floor, leaning against the bridge railing. The water’s thrashing was still mockingly laughing, echoing in the void of the black sky. Courtney sat beside her, holding her knees to her chest.

They were quiet for a second. 

“Tell me then, Courtney.” Bianca turned her head, lazily looking at her as Courtney turned to face her. “Why are you so sad?”

Courtney took her lip into her mouth, her heart hammering nervously in her chest as she remembered. “I…it’s stupid.”

“You disrupted my evening to make me sit on the freezing fucking floor. Get to talking.”

Courtney nods. “I had a panic attack. My mother caught me, and…it was horrible.” Her lip begins to quiver as the tears build behind her eyes again, ready to break the weak dam. Her eyes cascading waterfalls like she could fill the world with her sadness. Her cheeks had puffed with a freckled pink as her foundation faded, and her lips had been haloed with a red rim where the hysteria had overwhelmed her soft skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, hiccuping as the emotions over came her once again. “I’m sorry.”

Bianca felt awkward, staring unknowingly at Courtney, eyes wide as she tried to find the appropriate response. She wasn’t good with these situations - she’d learnt to buck up and solider through for so long, that even a suicide attempt in her head was her form of strength, finding the solution to final peace. She watched Courtney bawl her eyes out, before finally reaching out to put her arm around Courtney, only to be batted away and met with fearful eyes.

They sat like that for too long; eyes baring down on the other in confusion and embarrassment. 

“Okay, I  _won’t_  give you a hug.” Bianca said, insulted. 

“No, I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t…” She turned her body, resting on her knees, looking panicked she’d upset Bianca. “I just, don’t like being touched.”

Bianca raised her brow. “But, you held my wrists earlier, and shook my hand?”

“That was an emergency, that was a must do. That was what I  _had_  to do, so I did it despite how uncomfortable it felt.” She flexes her hands, pinching her palms with her nails and then rubbing them together. “I uh, have OCD.”

“Oh, so you’re a neat freak. A germaphobe, right?”

Courtney crinkled her nose. “No. Common misconception, I guess. I don’t like to be touched, it throws me off balance.” She watched Bianca’s face contort into further confusion. “Being touched makes me feel,  _weird_. Like, sometimes it just makes me so angry, or sometimes it makes me super anxious. Other times I don’t really notice but most of the time I do.” She jolts her shoulders, lifting her smile slightly. “I’ve had it since I was a kid. I use to count my footsteps when I walked or repeat my sentences under my breath. I was always very sensitive to touching though.”

Bianca nods, although she hasn’t a clue what it must be like. She hates being touched, but she can at least stomach it. “So you don’t hug?”

“Not really. I can, and sometimes I do, but not right now. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not sweat. I’m not a hugger.”

“You don’t look like one.”

They laugh together, barely. Bianca turns to look across the road, the bare pavement and street inhabited by the Autumn wind, and she has never listened so intensely to the sound of her own breathing. It’s haunting, to realise this may be one of the last things she will ever hear, and it’s so  _alive_ , stroking over her disrupted mind that boggles for prosper and is hanging by a thread, close to slipping,  _snapping_ , and dying. She listens, feeling the inflation and exhaling as it opens up her chest repeatedly, constricting her crippling, dusty heart, and she thinks about how this has always been her. Alive, a human being with a beating heart, pumping blood around her body, just like everyone else. This has always been her, the same as everyone else yet rewired wrong. 

If she’d have jumped, she’d be dead by now. She’s disappointed, and even more so when she recognises something deep within her that is relief.

“A panic attack. What happened?”

Courtney purses her lips. “My mother was drinking, and she just got…” she doesn’t finish that sentence, but starts a new one. “I never told her I have OCD. She wouldn’t have understood, no one ever has. But, she pushed me too far, and I had to tell her.” She laughed, but it was hard, and at her own expense. “She just started saying how she failed as a mother, and then trying to force me into a hug. It was,” she sighs, “a situation. It’s hard though, you know? Trying to comfort your mum while your body goes into hyperdrive and you need safety. No one will ever understand, and I guess…I just have to get use to it.”

Bianca’s body dropped, as she felt sympathy for Courtney. She smiled. “I think I get it, kind of. I mean, I don’t understand how it feels, but I get the whole ‘no one understanding’ shit. It sucks.”

“Yeah,” Courtney says, defeated, “It does. I love my mum, but she isn’t a very sensitive person.”

“Well, neither am I.”

“No, maybe not, but…you can’t be disappointed in me like her. She knows me, and she feels like she failed because of something I can’t control.” Courtney let a few tears slip, her head dropping as she sat back and clutched her knees to her chest again. Her body shook as she wailed, too over come by emotion, and all Bianca could do was sit and stare, listening to the anguish of such a beautiful girl broken and battered.

She let it stay that way for a while, before she coughed and sat up, running her hand through her hair. “I don’t really know how to be happy anymore.” she says, her gravelly voice as small as a mouse. Courtney quiets her cries, looking up through the blur of tears and attentively listening to Bianca. “It really is that simple. I stopped being happy a long time ago, and I spent so long waiting for it to return, or at least something close to happiness, but…it never came. I went to college, I made my parents proud, I even had a few good girlfriends that made me laugh. It just didn’t…” She rubbed her forehead, shrugging. “I kept praying it would get better, and it didn’t. I’d worry, all the time, and it was driving me fucking insane! I was going to be a failure, and I couldn’t let that happen.” She turned around, looking out into the abyss where the water ran for miles, never ending, but the city lights far off in the distance lit up like the heaven she hoped she’d find. “People told me to just get over it all. They used me as their experience with depression and took credit if I started to seem okay, and I’m so angry those people exist. I’m so fucking mad at them.

“Because anything I did right was by myself. When they told me to kill myself, when they told me everyone feels shitty, as if I wasn’t allowed to feel like a fucking head case and be sad! When they put me down, and belittled me, and when I went to hospital all those years ago after fucking up with killing myself…it was  _me_  that pulled through, not them. But now, I have no patience left. My heart feels like it’s in my mouth, and it’s rotting, and I can taste the disgusting toxic juices rot my insides away. I’m so fucked up, and I feel so numb. What’s the point, you know? So…I’m going to end it once and for all, a way I know can’t go wrong, and no one will have to find me, and I can just  _disappear_. Because that’s what I want. I want to disappear, and finally be okay, even if that means I’m dead.”

Courtney was at a loss for words. She watched how Bianca sat, enraged but exhausted, her plush lips turned down and her eyes dull of life. She saw a soul as damaged as her own, and she wanted to help. That was who Courtney was, a beckon of hope among the rust and rubble, desirable but desiring only to help those who needed her.

She took a deep, calming breath and with every piece of strength she had, she took Bianca’s hand and held it. The other girl looked up, slightly astonished, but touched. Courtney smiled, as wide as she could bare, her face lighting up.

“Just don’t squeeze. Please.”

Bianca didn’t. She sat on the cold concrete floor, holding the hand of a stranger who had shown her compassion, and the dark pull on her heart became a tad lighter. Enough for her to feel a tear in her eye; but she wasn’t going to cry; even though she wanted to.

“I’m sorry the world’s been shitty to you.”

“Back at you, sweet cheeks.”

“Will you hold my other hand for a minute?”

“Sure.”

The world moved on around them, in a tranquil, quiet manner for the evening of breaking hearts that needed a moment. The stars twinkled high above them, the ghost of what they were years ago, resisting death to bring beauty upon the earth that slept. Bianca and Courtney stayed sat beside the bridge, eventually apart from each other, hands in their laps, breathing.

“Life does get better though.” Courtney spoke up, seeing Bianca roll her eyes. “I know it sounds cliche, but it does, if you give it time.”

“That’s all I’ve ever done.”

“I know, but maybe more time? There’s always something around the corner. I mean look at me,” Courtney chuckles, “I’m riddled with paranoia and everyone’s only ever made fun of me for being scared of things, and they’ve provoked my OCD to the point of having panic attacks, but…I still wanted to help you. Aren’t I a sign? Par the distress on my own ugly mug, I’m here. People care.”

Bianca smiles, her dimples revealing for the first time that evening for Courtney to admire. She’s rather pretty, with her long brown hair fallen around her round face, and her eyes heavy with dark makeup, and the dimples brightening the night. She has a beautiful smile for someone caught up in their own horror. If she could, Courtney would give the oxygen from her lungs to Bianca, and let her breath in the optimism she possessed, if possible.

“Your face is hardly ugly, you know that?” Bianca raised her brow, smirking devilishly. Courtney can’t help the delighted smile that rises cheek to cheek.

“If I give you my number, will you not kill yourself? Just for a little while longer…please?”

“You say please a lot.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That too.”

Courtney stutters on an apology. She looks around her, then back at Bianca. “I just want you to have someone you can talk to. I know how it feels to…you know…but, that’s such an infinite solution for a temporary problem.”

“I’ve been like this for years, it’s not temporary.”

“In 10 years time, you could be over the moon, madly in love, working your dream job and this night will be a tragic but funny story. In 5 years time, you could be on vacation somewhere you’ve always wanted to be and the way the sun feels on your skin makes you happy to be alive that day. In  _1 week_ from now, you could end up with a life changing miracle that will have you relieved I didn’t let you jump. Trust me, I’ve been there. Even when you’re convinced it doesn’t get better, it does, in time. And it’s not easy, I know that, but sometimes it’s just about distractions and loved ones to help you battle through until that day comes.” Courtney’s eyes light up as she wipes away another tear. “The better day.”

Courtney stands to her feet. She holds out her hands for Bianca to take, and she just stares at them, a thousand thoughts racing through her muddy mind. She’d be dead if it weren’t for Courtney, and this is the first time in a significantly long time she’s felt good to be alive, and the relief that she wanted to strangle and dismiss was now a glowing feeling she let her heart bask in. This was the first time in an extremely long time she thought it was a magnificent time to be alive, because she’d never have met the beautiful blonde or had the time to listen to her breathe without being alive. Bianca had wanted to die for the longest time, she’d forgotten to appreciate the good parts of being alive. Meeting someone new, beautiful clear nights, the quiet of a city asleep, and blondes with sunny smiles and smudged mascara. She’s forgotten those things existed outside of her depression.

This wasn’t her cure, but this was the moment that she hoped hope would lead her somewhere.

She took Courtney’s hands, hoisted herself to her feet and patted off her bum. Courtney patted the sides of her legs 5 times, awkwardly smiling at Bianca before they stood there, admiring the other. 

“If you give me your number, can I actually call you, just to talk? Or will your boyfriend tell me to get fucked?”

Courtney giggled. “No boyfriend. I’m gay.”

Bianca forgot how it felt to be exhilarated. Her heart began thumping, but with wonder, not nerves. “Oh, that’s good. Or, whatever.” She looked over the edge of the railing. The water still looked so tempting, and she was still inflicted with the curiosity that is a still beating heart and running out of breath, but she pushed it away, looking back at Courtney. “I’m sorry about your mum. It must be hard, but…” Bianca winked, “it gets better.”

Courtney shook her head, grinning. “You’re not wrong.” She held out her hand. “Give me your phone.” Bianca gave it to her, watching as Courtney typed in her number, then she rang herself and heard the chirpy tone of birds fluttering from her pocket. “There,” she handed the phone back, “Call me whenever. Night or day. If I don’t pick up, just wait a little while and I’ll get back to you.”

Bianca dubiously looks at her phone, then back at Courtney. “That’s a lot of pressure you’re taking on, you know? Talking someone out of killing themself. I don’t think it’s such a good idea to keep contact. I can’t slip up and have you feel terrible-”

“It’s my choice. You seem nice, and I want to talk to you again.” Bianca couldn’t help laughing at the statement, making Courtney watch her quizzically. 

“Nice? You haven’t a fucking clue who I am.”

“Well, I liked your company. You listened to me, I listened to you, and that was nice, right?” It was, Bianca couldn’t pretend otherwise. She nodded. “You’re important.”

“Alright,  _enough_  with the bullshit cliches! I’ve had enough of freezing my tits off out here, I’m not going to kill myself tonight so we might as well go home. Is that okay?”

Courtney nods, leading the way and they both walk together for a few miles before they have to part. The sound of the waves crashing is soon but a distant memory and Bianca is brought back to reality. When they come to the cross roads, they have a brief hug that Courtney leaves quicker than she’d like, and they begin to walk separate ways.

“Wait,” Bianca spins around, jogging back toward Courtney. The blonde girl turned around, hair swaying in the breeze. Her face was a contorted mess of blacks and pinks, smudged, but she was still stunning in the milky night wavering thin as the hours turned bright. “It was pretty coincidental you walking my way. Like, you said about your mom, and you said about understanding me, and…” Bianca frowned, looking at her feet as she thought too hard. “You were pretty distraught. You said I can talk to you, but, it’s a two way thing, right? You’ll tell me when the world is being a cunt? Because you say I seem nice but…you actually are.”

Courtney let out a heavy breath, like she’d been holding it in forever, and finally her lungs were clean of the insecurities that dirtied her insides. “The truth is Bianca, I was on the bridge the same reason you were.” Bianca’s eyes fell wide, and her cuts churned with a sickening coldness she was unfamiliar with. “But seeing you on the edge, woke me up. I was scared looking at you, positively terrified. I couldn’t help but grab you. I’m sorry I ruined your plans, I just…realised, like a flash of lightening or something it’s not worth it.”

Bianca has never been speechless a day in her life. She stands on the street corner with this girl who feels like an intimate partner but is a stranger in the night, and she’s completely at a loss for a functioning thought. The air is dense, like it’s heavy with water, and she feels claustrophobic as if it will tangle up in her limbs and render her helpless. For years she’d felt helplessly alone, fighting a battle no one else believed was happening, and here she stands shell shocked this gorgeous girl in front of her would even  _dare_  giving up; the same way she almost did; in a watery grave they almost shared. She keeps staring at Courtney, until the other girl speaks up to break the silence. 

“We see in others what we don’t see in ourselves. That’s another cliche for you.” She snickered, sweetly. “If roles were reversed, would you stop me?”

“Yes. I…I think I would.”

“Then I guess we both just have to learn, if other people are worth life, so are we.” She pauses, breaths, and lifts her smile higher. “Call me. It was nice to meet you, Bianca.”

“Yeah. It was nice to meet you too, Courtney.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Courtney turns and walks away. Bianca watches her leave, until she’s a speck in the distance that disappears. 

She stands helplessly alone, and reflects on the events of her night. She organised and decided that tonight was her last night alive, and she was determined to end everything in a way she wouldn’t be found and mourned over. She didn’t want gruesome, she didn’t care about painless, it was all about disappearing. She could still remember the feeling of nothingness beneath her toes, like she was flying, free, for no one to judge or control, and the wind trying to throw her about like a rag doll. She thought about how her heart was no longer just an organ amongst the rest, but had become a weeping being begging to be put out of its misery, but faced with the opportunity it seized the desire and crazed safety. Bianca had never feared death until she heard the sound of crashing waves, mocking her, tempting her to get lost to the tales of the sea. Then she felt hands on her wrists, and the rest was what it was.

Bianca went home, ran up to her room and tore up to suicide note left under her pillow. She threw it down the toilet so no one could ever reassemble the words of her destructive depression, and then lay in bed, quiet. 

There was nothing left to say, and nothing left to think. All there was was living; and she cried; because she could do so; and she didn’t have to remember to stay strong even when at her worst. She was allowed to be sad, and the days would draw on, and she was going to try and hope that hope would prevail.

She called Courtney the next day, and they spoke for hours. Sometimes they both would have relapses, sometimes they would return to the bridge separately and stare longingly at what almost was, but somewhere down the line they found happiness in one another. They didn’t cure each other - that would never happen unfortunately and it was painful to go through the better years feeling the blues - but they had finally found someone to talk to, and to hold hands with; and then the other one.


End file.
